Share your most Lib opinions
The "who must go" memes are funny but al-Assad is a war criminal and all-around piece of shit. He should never be portrayed in a good light.
Femboy, it's been nice knowing you, but the curse is strong and the Lion of Damascus will see who in fact must go.
To me, it's similar to the Yugoslavia situation at this point. You can make all the materialist cases you want, but there is not a single redeemable side in this situation. I personally know someone that has done aid work in Syria for the better part of 4 years now, and after hearing about the hell that surrounds all the civilians there, especially the women and children, those memes have just become cringeworthy as fuck.
Not flawless, but certainly has made real attempts to do better than any other side in that hellhole.
I mean, even at some level I can see and understand why these things occur in war. The issue is sitting on your computer somewhere, removed from the situation, and using someone like Assad as a punchline for a joke, especially when none of us can really comprehend the situation on the ground there unless we suited up and actually went and took a look.
Violence is bad, really bad, and the only reason a violent revolution can be justified is because of all the socially accepted violence already being meted out against the most vulnerable.
This is a lib take? That's just how it is? Ain't a single fucking thing in my room made without violence towards people.
show me a leftist who disagrees and I'll show you an abusive person that doesn't belong near anyone vulnerable.
The inability of many leftists to judge the importance of takes and issues AT SCALE is a huge impediment. Going into poop flinging fights over EVERYTHING gets nothing done, and is a perfect example of Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome.
Does it matter that Bob128547 thinks Stalin was actually bad? Probably not, since Bob has 11 followers and got one like on their tweet. Does pounding on the bars and hooting about it do anything to change their mind? No. Does it change the readers mind? Well, it makes them think leftists are bonkers, so yes, but not in the good way.
Or the TLDR; Twitter and the toxic legacy of Marx's "posting style" combine to make the worst leftists.
Yes. Dunking on people is an ingroup strategy, that talks to the already converted, particularly if it's buried in a bunch of signifiers that only the initiated understand. We need an outgroup strategy, but that's a lot harder to develop.
I sometimes wonder if a "John Oliver goes deeper" thing might work, on YouTube. A channel that takes his big piece of the week, and then explains how it fits into Marxist theory. This seems easier than most of our strategies, since Oliver is already popular, and a lot of his pieces are 80% of the way there.
Communists: browbeating people works!
Bootlickers: constantly browbeating communists from birth
Communists: are still communists???????
The difference is communists have theory and ideology to keep them on course. Bootlickers have fear, hierarchy, and gut feelings.
It might be easier for leftists to organize under a Biden presidency than a 2nd Trump term. Trumpism tends to reduce all politics towards reactive media circus. During the Obama years, leftist ideology entered the political mainstream, and neither Biden nor Harris have half of Obama’s charisma/(misplaced) credibility.
If all the #resistance phonies and grifters demobilize/log off after November, our movement is better off for it. We might even be able to start peeling off some of the rural working class if Dems are in charge.
If all the #resistance phonies and grifters demobilize/log off after November, our movement is better off for it.
These types are no small part of why Bernie lost. Primary turnout was huge among this crowd. If they coast through the midterms and into 2024 that could help DSA-style candidates.
I unironically agree with this. Trump's charisma (lol) has defined every single aspect of US politics for the last 4 years; if he loses, neither the GOP nor the Dems will have a genuinely magnetic leader, and the left will be able to point out how shitty electoral politics are from the outside.
I absolutely agree that dem primary turnout will go down substantially should Trump lose. It will be much easier for insurgents to win primaries.
Sports are good. Most American sports like football and baseball are dogshit, but in general sports are good.
I think there are a lot of times and places where competition is good - having a clear winner and loser. Sometimes people who put forth their best effort need to get their teeth kicked in by somebody who did more, learned better, and executed better. Rivalries can give many people meaning in their lives and a drive to actualize themselves in ways that solidarity and creating a better world never could.
Maybe the loser doesn't need to be homeless and disenfranchised.
We need to do some Futuresports
Change it up a little. Like, what if football but rollerskates. That would be fun if we just switched over for like six months
Playing sports is awesome, watching sports can be good, it's a great group activity.
However, the takeover of sports by the capitalist machine has caused :
- removal of class awareness and home teams - removal of political ideology (read: non-neoliberal politics) from team identity
- saturation by ad-focused sporting events that are no longer about sport but about making ad revenue
- sports used as a distraction from life - you can't go out and struggle when you are watching mind numbing tv sports 3b) why do so many chuds love sports? Because it's a way to not think about cognitive dissonance in their lives, and also simulate violence.
Anyway, I don't know what my point is, but sports could be good, they just have a lot of problems which have been caused by capitalism.
Agreed. The allegedly "socialist" soccer club I support has the name of a criminal bank on the front of their kits.
GenZedong, MoreTankieChapo and all online communities associated with that kind of tankie subculture suck
I think that is overall bad to take on a full Soviet aesthetic. I'd much rather see a semi powerful ML party that understands concessions and that can get popular support. The only issue with that is they're often the ones killed en masse.
I like those places because sometimes it's nice to just not be around libs for a little bit.
Totally agree. It's entirely aesthetic.
Fucking clown shit when people build a fake guillotine to take to Bezos house just to take pictures of.
Communism or anarchism may help some very specific underlying factors, but are not in themselves solutions to climate change.
No matter what our economic system, we're going to have to find a way for people in the global north to be ok with a significant change in their consumption habits.
Ok fine. Revolution isn't the only way to achieve a new, just, economic system and this can be achieved through the democratic process if we ever actually got organized.
The reason that idea feels like incrementalism is because it lays bare how far we actually are from the type of organizion we would need to do either.
Revolution isn’t the only way to achieve a new, just, economic system and this can be achieved through the democratic process if we ever actually got organized.
Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales nod in agreement
I really wish Bernie had won so I could still think electoralism worked instead of constantly dreading armed fascist militias.
90% of the people who get labeled as wreckers are just leftists with different opinions. It takes very little for us to fight amongst ourselves indefinitely.
We have to be honest with ourselves and admit we sometimes we tolerate troublesome (or troubled) comrades for too long. There's a balance to be struck, of course, but the reality is some people just destroy orgs. It's not intentional, for the most part, but mental health is a fuck under capitalism.
whispers I like it too. If you squint you can occasionally see critical views of US military acting as world police, but then aliens arrive and you're forced to ignore it. I enjoy the focus on comedy that was set as a precedent by IM1.
Also, if you watch any of the MCU, The Boys becomes 10x more terrifying, hilarious and prescient.
On twitter this scene was being mocked (which I fully understand). It is a neoliberal/conservative wet dream. What is not commented on however is that this is at the beginning of the film. The film then shows by privatising military equipment and creating a 'nuclear deterrent' the beloved free market is compelled to catch up. Justin Hammer teams up with terrorists to create competing tech that can also be utilised negatively and be able to be used without government regulations and oversight. (similar to militias currently used overseas)
i do like the idea of an all powerful god whos actually trying to do good, but he's just such a fucking moron and doesn't listen to anyone's advice
I love how they picked the dumbest way to square the circle.
The old, wants to bag a god of death is a more sesnable reason than malthusianism. Which, i have to deep down belive was a CIA gimmick to keep people from.realizkng that if the population stopped growing things could just get nicer alot easier.
But also, in tbe movie thanos was right. After they avengers snapped and doubbled the population eveyolace would have an immediate resource crisis.
In 2014 he was portrayed a lot more sadistically, but by 2018 he had mellowed out a lot and became the wise, old, calm, but evil dictator that crops up again and again in movies and books.
He was ultimately the protagonist of Infinity War, so it was in a lens more sympathetic to him.
But also, in the movie Thanos was right. After they avengers snapped and doubled the population everyplace would have an immediate resource crisis.
Only because he snapped them in the first place. But the main problem, and my biggest problem with the movie, is that instead of reverting everything to right before the snap they just, brought the people back into a world that's been without them for 5 years. And to the exact same spots too. People who were in an airplane would have just fell to their death after being brought back.
All because one guy had a daughter...
Edit: Oh and also somehow half of people on Earth disappearing didn't lead to major societal/governmental change. Everything just kept going as normal, but with less people.
Thanos did nothing wrong because thanos is fictional as were his(?) presumed victims
I have never watched a marvel film
Despite all the math saying single family homes are bad, I completely understand the appeal.
despite the good shit that stalin did he was still a cunt and finland was correct to fight him back
Voting is good and important. People are afraid of big changes really fast, so every small change that happens in a democratic system makes it easier to pull off the revolutionary band aid in one go.
I think voting in local stuff is hugely important, moreso than national stuff and feels like the easiest way, under current conditions, to actually effect material change.
Like, voting for the lesser evil nationally sucks ass. It's tiresome, and really sucks energy away from local races. But voting for the lesser evil locally is way more important; if you have elected DAs, and one of them is 5% better than the other candidate, that's 5% fewer charges against people in your community. 5% more people who don't have to struggle through court, fines, jail, and having a criminal record. That's a huge impact for extremely low effort. Doing it as part of a org can open up a future where a candidate who is 50% better runs and can win, creating an even larger impact. And your vote counts far more the more local the race.
I don't think anyone would seriously argue voting isn't important. That last bad faith where virgil said "your vote doesn't matter" is more a critique of the system in general. How it's hard to really matter when the electoral college exists, we only ever vote for anything once every two or four years, we're never voting for good candidates just less terrible ones, etc.
Voting is cool and good. That's why we need to expand democracy to give more people more say over what laws are passed and certainly bring democracy into the workplace. And maybe even outlaw anti democratic political organizing like the republican and democratic parties.
Republic of China exists.
spoiler
My body is ready for the downbears
